Jimi Hendrix
On the Monday morning of Woodstock in 1969, with most of the crowd gone home, a left-handed guitarist turned 'The Star-Spangled Banner' into a storm of feedback and dive-bombing notes that many heard as the sound of the Vietnam War.
Jimi Hendrix had cut his teeth as a sideman for the Isley Brothers and Little Richard before the Animals' Chas Chandler brought him to England in 1966. With the Experience, singles like 'Hey Joe' and 'Purple Haze' and the album Are You Experienced fused blues, psychedelia and sheer volume, while Axis: Bold as Love and the sprawling Electric Ladyland, with its blazing take on Dylan's 'All Along the Watchtower', treated the studio as another instrument.
Band of Gypsys, recorded live with Billy Cox and Buddy Miles, leaned into funk. Months later, in September 1970, he died in London at 27, less than four years after his first hit.
If you like Jimi Hendrix you should check out: Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, The Isley Brothers, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, The Doors, John Frusciante
